


The Ends and the Means

by nomisunrider



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Consequences, Gen, Michael Burnham Deserves Better, Spoilers for Season 2 Episode 10: The Red Angel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-06 21:30:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18225665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomisunrider/pseuds/nomisunrider
Summary: The plan didn't work.The Red Angel didn't show up.Now the crew of the Discovery is left to face the consequences of their actions, and to wonder...how could they ever have thought this right?





	The Ends and the Means

**Author's Note:**

> This was written fast and barely proof-read. 
> 
> It's a goddamn travesty that this episode was allowed to happen. They showed a black woman's graphic, violent, agonizing death for two straight minutes as her friends watched, with only the barest, most miniscule of in-universe reasoning.
> 
> Doesn't matter that it worked, everyone in charge should be court-martialed. But no one ever faces a consequence in this damn show unless they fail, so...I made that happen.
> 
> Update: Times were edited because a commenter pointed out that the Angel appeared after thirty three seconds of Michael's clinical death, not...seven. Which is so much worse than I thought. It was physically painful to put it into the fic, and now everyone in it seems like even more of a monster, which I guess is what I was going for.
> 
> Jesus Christ, 33 seconds. This fucking show.

 

 

 

 

In a quick, seamless motion, Pollard draws the sheets around the bio-bed on which her patient has materialized.

“Computer, overhead lights to eighteen percent!”

No real need to dim sickbay lights, but the situation feels as if it requires some manner of somber settings. The call had come in mere moments ago, and Pollard heart had stopped as it did.

" _Culber to Sickbay, Commander Burnham to beam-up! Heart in v-fib, not breathing, perchlorate scarring on the lungs and heart, she’s coming in with a ventilator and micro-defibrillator strapped to her abdomen!”_

One did not need to be a medical doctor to translate that sentence.

Dead.

Michael Burnham was dead.

No doubt someone clever had brought a life sign imitator down to Essof IV in case of this exact situation. Doctor Tracy Pollard mentally salutes them.

She works quickly, cutting Burnham out of her already cut-up uniform, which she stores beneath the bio-bed. She administers typical doses of epinephrine and vasopressin. One look at the micro-defibrillator reveals that is administering one shock nearly every fifteen seconds, indicating that Burnham’s heart is too damaged to maintain its own normal rhythm.

The portable ventilator stays on, but Pollard calls for a heart-lung machine, stat.

The heart-lung machine appears just outside of the curtains. Pollard brings it inside and begins the arduous process of setting it up. As she works, the reports come in on the earpiece she has taken to wearing around sickbay to free up her hands.

“… _a risky plan to trap the Red Angel…hypothesis that the angel only appears when Michael Burnham is in danger…”_

Pollard has to laugh at that. Were the red angel to appear every time Burnham’s life were in jeopardy, it would have made so many appearances by now that they would have known of its presence years ago.

“ _…Lieutenant Spock and Commander Burnham’s plan to artificially create a situation in which Burnham’s life would be in danger…_ Burnham serving as bait, surrounded by an engineered trap for the Red Angel’s flight suit _...exposure_ _to the toxic Essof IV atmosphere would result in suffocation and death from perchlorate fumes and CO poisoning…_ ”

Pollard nearly drops the tubing.

In the next moment, she remembers that she has a clinically dead patient before her, and continues her work with quick, determined motions. Nevertheless, the report continues, and Pollard’s thoughts grow black and vicious as it does.

“ _…bound to a chair in an abandoned warehouse…fumes stripped the skin from her face…burst blood vessels in her eyes…O2 sats dipped below forty percent…”_

Pollard barely manages to keep her hands from shaking as she enters commands into the heart lung machine to bring it online.

“ _…heart stopped for thirty-eight seconds before life-support measures were applied…_ ”

At this, Pollard cannot help the scandalized “ _Are you fucking kidding me?!_ ” that escapes her chest.

She whisper-shouts the demand up towards the ceiling, where somewhere above them, Pike and bridge crew are doing God only knows what.

Thirty-eight seconds. Burnham had been dead in the chair for thirty-eight seconds.

What in the name of all Gods and hells was the away team doing for _thirty-eight goddamn seconds_ while Burnham had been in that chair, dead and technically decomposing?

“Criminals, all of them fucking criminals,” Pollard mutters to herself. The heart-lung machine is on, manually pumping blood around Burnham’s body as it oxygenates the red blood cells within its whirring depths.

Pollard gently removes the respirator mask from Burnham’s face. Now that her blood is being oxygenated manually, there is no need for her lungs to be forcefully inflated with oxygen from a different machine. Such a thing would be redundant.

As Pollard tugs the mask from Burnham’s face, she is careful to avoid the marks from the caustic atmosphere. Upon Burnham’s appearance, she had assumed the marks to be dirt, but the sight of the Human dermis and soft tissue is unmistakable.

Partial-thickness chemical burns.

Pollard looks to her hands to see much of the same, not to mention the ligature marks that she had not noticed while cutting Burnham’s uniform off, so focused had she been on her objective.

Dark blue bruising on her wrists and ankles, from the tape that bound her to that chair.

A shroud of utter horror descends upon Pollard’s chest.

For the bruising to be this intense, after a mere two minutes of struggle…Burnham must have fought the restraints with all of her strength.

She must have been consumed with terror.

“They really were gonna kill you, huh?” Pollard murmurs. Michael is still and silent now. Her chest rises and falls with the pulse of the heart-lung machine. Paradoxical, as her lungs are not breathing, but Pollard appreciates this side-effect of the machine all the same.

“They let you suffocate to death, scared and in agony…”

The words leave Pollard’s lips with all of the grim despair of a tidal breath. The doctor’s insides feel like they’re being forced through a tiny straw, the noises of sickbay seem far away at the moment.

Starfleet killed Michael Burnham.

Captain Pike, Admiral Cornwell…Doctor Culber and Commander Stamets had been on-site, as had Burnham’s brother, Spock. Everyone on the bridge would have known, all would have been monitoring…Pollard mentally goes through the list of everyone who had surely been involved in carrying out this plan.

_Monsters._

Didn’t matter a lick if it had been Burnham’s idea, if she had walked to the chair of her own volition. The plan had been unethical, against so many of their oaths it never should have made it out of Pike’s ready room.

And it hadn’t worked.

Pollard’s lips go flat with fury as she places internal healing pads over Burnham’s bare chest, which will release artificial nano-organisms that will treat the chemical burns to her lungs. Her eyes sting as she aims a dermal regenerator at Burnham’s face, then her hands, to treat the burns so they will not scar.

Assuming Burnham will one day regain consciousness to care about such a thing.

In no way a guarantee, as she is clinically dead, a machine breathing for her and pumping blood around her body to keep her limbs and brain from rotting.

Pollard thinks she might implode with white-hot rage.

Heads will roll. If Pollard has to submit every damn report herself, she will ensure it. This heinous act will not go unpunished.

Pollard bends under the bio-bed to retrieve the sliced fragments of Burnham’s uniform. She searches each of the pockets so as not to recycle anything of value, and almost immediately her fingers brush against something thin and metallic.

Almost reverently, she withdraws a smooth, gold Starfleet badge from the pocket of Burnham’s trousers.

Doctor Tracy Pollard gazes at the gold badge in her hands, scuffed, bent, and blackened, long past its use-by date. She is unsurprised at the name inscribed in the back.

Burnham’s posthumous loyalty to her former captain is a well-known fact on the _Discovery_ at this point. Still, for her to be carrying a dead woman’s badge nearly two years later…Pollard cannot help but wonder what the relationship between the two  might have been.

She looks from the badge to Burnham’s still form, now covered in a blue medical blanket. Burnham’s lips are no longer blue, her face no longer burnt; the scans indicate baseline brain activity, but her heart refuses to beat, her lungs refuse to breath.

The trauma of that two minutes of torture carved indelibly upon Michael Burnham’s very organ systems.

_Those bastards let her do this._

Doctor Pollard opens Burnham’s right hand, places the badge into it, and folds her fingers around the piece of metal. She takes in Burnham’s face, her body, still and silent after what it had been through.

“I’d tell you to fight…” Pollard begins. “But I know you’ve done that most of your life. So…it’s okay if you’re tired. It’s okay, Burnham.”

She reaches out a hand to squeeze Michael’s closed fist, the gold badge nestled within it.

 

 

**

 

  

 

Still and silent on the bio-bed, Michael Burnham’s chest rises and falls steadily as machine breathes for her, as it pumps blood in and out of her bloodstream to take over for her heart and lungs. Both organ systems have been still as of one hour, two minutes, twelve seconds ago, when Michael’s body had finally given out under the toxic atmosphere of Essof IV.

Captain Christopher Pike stands over the body of his science officer. Admiral Katrina Cornwell stands at his left shoulder.

“We never conceived of a future where it didn’t work, did we?” Pike finally asks.

Cornwell is silent beside him. Moments crawl past as she regards Burnham, her dark face smooth and unbothered, her chemical burns treated, her blood and her tears carefully dried.

Finally, Cornwell speaks up.

“If captains were to consider the potential damage lurking behind every decision, they would not be captains for very long. Occasionally, circumstances demand we roll the dice—“

“A split second decision would have been one thing,” Pike denies with a bitter shake of his head. “This…took several hours of set-up, even more hours of calculation and planning—“

He snaps his jaw shut, teeth clenching behind closed lips.

“Tell me, Admiral… What kind of a captain orders the agonizing suffocation of his second officer?”

“It wasn’t your order, Chris.”

“My authorization _,_ then. _Admiral_.”

Pike shakes his head, staring down at Burnham’s still form covered in tubes and wires. Her dark eyes are closed, her body covered in a heated blanket.

He does not think he will ever forget Michael’s screams, the skin peeling from her face, how she struggled and fought her restraints as her lungs gave out, as her heart beat itself to death in its fight keep her alive.

“After watching her crewmate and friend die in front her, only two days ago…after her proven record of self-sacrifice and blame, as her own brother has confirmed… There were so many red flags—“

“There were.”

Cornwell cuts him off in her gruff voice.

“I should have seen them as well, Captain. I _am_ a therapist. A personnel member submitting herself to a painful, agonizing death, for the merest whisper of a chance of success… I-- I should have…”

Cornwell’s voice fades to a whisper as she trails off.

Michael’s chest rises and falls. She could merely be sleeping, if not for the blood spinning through the tubes of the heart-lung machine parked next to the bio-bed, undergoing mechanically induced oxygenation before returning to her body.

“You remember that minefield, back at the Section 31 base?”

Pike offers the question almost in jest. Like either of them could forget.

But Cornwell merely nods, her blue eyes watching the gentle beat of Burnham’s heart on the monitor.

Pike huffs, shaking his head.

“ _Giving up our values…in the name of security…is to lose the battle in advance._ ”

He quotes himself with no sarcasm. “I really tore you a new one, didn’t I? Putting forth that the Klingons were protected under Federation laws. Our _enemy,_ the Klingons…”

Cornwell’s gaze slides towards him, knowing and understanding.

“All of my pretense towards not sacrificing the protections set in place by our laws…and yet, _somehow_ …I managed to reach the decision, that my own officer deserved no such protection.”

“You ordered the plug pulled—“

“It should never have gotten that far!”

Pike snaps the words, and Cornwell, to her credit, doesn’t flinch.

“I should’ve vetoed this plan the second it was brought to me. I should’ve demanded they find another way…more signals, more research…anything but this.”

Pike’s gaze is still as he stares at Michael’s body in the biobed.

“I failed in my duties as captain. She died because I authorized it.”

“And?”

Pike looks towards Cornwell. Her face is lined with the weight of a galactic war, but the flint in her eyes is unmistakable.

“You can berate yourself all you want in the privacy of your quarters. What do you intend to actually do about this?”

Cornwell gestures with her chin towards Burnham’s body, comatose in the biobed.

Pike’s answer is ready.

“I’ve already submitted my report. I expect to receive the summons for court-martial any moment now.”

And he will welcome such summons, when they come.

Pike raises an eyebrow at the Admiral.

“And you?”

Cornwell nods, her gaze meandering back towards Burnham, her expression blank.

“I’ve already gotten mine. I’ll be on a shuttle to Earth within the hour.”

  

 

**

 

 

Lieutenant Spock is behind a terminal in the spore lab, working through his problems with science and logic. His fingers flicker over the computer as he inputs variables and studies every aspect of this mission, their proposal, all of the decisions made that allowed it to go forth, all of his and Michael’s explanations to justify such desperate measures.

Commander Paul Stamets stands on the other side of the screen. He occasionally types in a command, which is the only indicator that he is present at all. For the most part, his attention is focused towards Spock, Burnham’s brother, who has yet to indicate whatever he might be feeling concerning the situation.

“Our logic was flawed.” Spock finally states.

Stamets peers around his programming. “Oh?”

“We put forth a hypothesis that the Red Angel's appearance is correlated with the endangerment of Michael Burnham's life. We were incorrect.”

Stamets nods slowly. He works through the data in his mind…somehow, for the first time on this awful day. Inconsistencies appear almost immediately.

“It…appeared to that church, back in the 21st century...”

Stamets states his sentence in a low voice, unpleasant realization hanging from every syllable.

“…Burnham’s great grandfather wouldn’t have even been born at that point.”

“And its appearance on Kaminar,” Spock continues. “Michael was safely aboard the _Discovery_ ; nevertheless, the angel appeared on the planet to save the Kelpiens from extinction.”

He blinks once, his eyes staring straight ahead.

“Our logic…was flawed. So deeply flawed…a ten year old Learning Center pupil could not have made a more fundamental error than this.”

Silence.

Spock’s fist suddenly flashes out, smashing through the monitor with a splintering _crack._

Stamets jumps at the sound. “ _Gah_! Jesus—“

But he cuts himself off at the look on Spock’s bearded face. The man’s eyes are so filled with emotion, Stamets wonders how he could possibly be controlling it in any way. After all, Vulcan logic _was_ created by Surak as a way to control the veritable hurricane of emotion that all Vulcans carry within themselves.

It is a biological fact, as well as an emotional truth, that Vulcans are, at all times, keeping a tight hold over a well filled with boiling fire.

“Was I so determined that she suffer?”

Spock’s deep, distressed voice rings over the lab.

“Or was I merely…so intent on catching this being that upended my mind, that I did not bother to consider alternatives--”

He walks from the terminal, all but staggering around the lab as he works through whatever is going through his brain. Stamets watches him do this, and wonders at the question himself. He runs through the data in his mind, the angel’s appearances correlated with Michael Burnham’s presence…

Four known appearances, two of which had anything at all to do with Burnham's presence or mortal peril.

A mere fifty percent. 

Not remotely enough evidence to imply causation.

“How did we not catch that…” Stamets finally murmurs. He feels quite like he’s been punched in the gut.

“I have, many times, accused my sister of taking on responsibility for situations that were clearly out of her control. For shouldering burdens that were not hers…for… _martyring herself_ —“

Spock bites out the words like they cause him physical pain. He turns back towards Stamets where he stands hunched in the middle of the lab, as if such a motion is agony.

“And I made her a martyr.” Spock shakes his head, and twin tears dislodge from his eyes, hitting the floor in the next moment. “I stood by the door with my phaser hot, to ensure it.”

Stamets walks slowly, slowly towards him. He has no words to offer, none at all.

After all…had he not done the same?

“Everyone on this ship is just as guilty as you are,” Stamets finally states. “Every one of us. This plan was monstrous. But, somehow…we all thought it was necessary. Too necessary…to even consider _why_ it might have been illegal…”

Stamets’ head twitches as he catches the blue light of the spore drive. He turns towards the reaction cube, and Spock’s gaze follows his own.

In the span of a moment, Stamets recalls the Klingon war. He stares into the cube and imagines floating spores, piercing drive needles, agonized screams from a creature so strong it could shred starship hulls with its claws…

A sentient creature who meant no harm.

A sentient creature that the _Discovery_ had knowingly tortured, as a means to what they had considered to be a crucial end.

“We think ourselves above the rules. We always have.”

Stamets stares into the reaction cube as he speaks.

“We are…monstrous.”

The words hang in the silent, somber air of the spore lab, as both Stamets and Spock ruminate before the blue light of the reaction chamber.

“Perhaps,” Spock finally allows. “But none of you are Michael Burnham’s brother.”

Stamets turns towards Spock in surprise.

“You know, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you call yourself that.”

Spock is silent for a moment. His eyes wander down towards his hands, held palms-up in front him.

Hands that had strapped Michael Burnham into a chair so that she could suffer and die. Hands that had cocked a phaser towards life-giving help to ensure it.

“Remember it, Commander. It will also be my last.”

 

 

 

**

 

 

Sylvia Tilly’s tears have dried up hours ago.

Now she merely sits at Michael’s bedside, eyes puffy and face swollen, holding her friend’s hand as machines keep her vital organ functions online.

“I, um…I’m so sorry, Michael.”

Tilly fights down a fresh wave of tears as she mumbles the words.

“I…Y’know, I’m always like, trying to do what’s right or whatever, trying to act like a captain, even if I’m not, not yet…I—I knew this was wrong, something in me, some part of me was just yelling, “Sylvia, Sylvia, look at this plan, why are we-- …we _breaking_ Starfleet law just to-- to _maybe,_ catch something that isn’t even bad—“

Tilly clamps her mouth shut. She clings tightly to Michael’s hand, watch her chest rise and fall as the heart-lung machine whirs next to her biobed.

“I…” Tilly chokes, “I should’ve known better. You’re my friend…I should’ve been desperately searching for alternatives, I should’ve…should’ve begged Pike, begged Cornwell, gotten myself thrown in the brig for insubordination…oh _Michael_ , I would’ve done that for you…”

Michael’s hand is warm in her own. The electric blanket is doing its job.

“I shouldn’t be a captain. What kind of a captain would let this happen? Even a…twenty two year old aspirant candidate…” Tilly brings a sleeve up to her face to catch the new tears that leak from her eyes.

“You’ve been through so many awful things…none of us should have let you do this.”

Tilly’s mouth opens and closes where she sits in the chair by Michael’s bed.

Her deathbed.

“I…I don’t know if I can serve under Captain Pike anymore…if I even want to…maybe I should withdraw from the Command Training Program. I…” Tilly swallows. “I need to get my head on straight. My priorities straight. The mission…shouldn’t come before the people, the ends before the means…oh Michael, I’m _sorry_ …”

Tilly collapses over Michael’s body as she dissolves into tears once more. She buries her face in her roommate’s chest, holding her tightly even over the heat blanket.

Michael, who had come for her in the mycelial network.

Her friend, who had risked everything for all of them, again and again and again, who had _begged_ for more time so that Airiam might be spared, who had faced her greatest demons on the _ISS Charon_ to get the _Discovery_ the information that would help them escape, who had led Ripper into the Jeffries tubes so that the away team could save themselves…

A sob rips from Tilly’s chest.

Michael had protected them all so many times.

Why had they allowed her to do this?

 

 

**

 

 

Commander Saru gazes out of the portside window of his quarters. Captain Philippa Georgiou’s telescope stands next to him, erect and proud, ready to gaze into the cosmos, to discover mysteries not yet seen by sentient eyes.

Captain Georgiou, who had left this telescope to Michael. Michael Burnham, the captain had loved her more than anyone has ever loved anyone else.

Saru opens his mouth…and begins to sing the song of remembrance of his people, in the only language that springs to his tongue before Standard English. He passes the syllables in a low tone, nearly a murmur, as if not wanting to upend the peace and the silence of these quarters.

As he croons the low notes of the Kelpien funeral durge, Saru takes in the telescope next to him.

He should not have taken such a precious relic from Michael.

How could he have ever thought it just, to do such a thing?

Michael had been suffering more than anyone possibly could have, in the wake of Captain Georgiou’s death. Her pain, her _guilt…_

“ _That supposition fits her emotional profile rather precisely, particularly her drive to take responsibility for situations beyond her control…_ ”

Spock’s words ring in Saru’s ears as he examines Georgiou’s telescope.

Michael had been consumed with guilt for far longer than anyone had realized, nor thought to help her with.

Rather, they had all merely…accepted it as the norm.

Michael Burnham, always ready to step in with a solution. Michael, always there to solve problems, to come up with reckless, dangerous plans that she would nevertheless make work, somehow.

Commander Burnham, always there to save the day, no matter the cost to herself.

Even the mutiny…now _that_ would have cost her greatly, whether it had succeeded or failed. But Michael had done it anyway, fully prepared to suffer, so long as her captain and her ship were saved.

And today, she had done it again.

And it had failed.

_Again._

Saru’s fingertips wander up to the pouches at the sides of his head, where once his threat-ganglia had nestled.

If he were still an un-evolved Kelpien man…would he have seen this coming?

Would he have sensed the approach of death and summoned the courage to act, to prevent it?

Saru remembers the Binary Stars…he remembers his instincts, which had been right. His instincts, which he had ignored and stifled in the crushing authority of Captain Georgiou’s leadership.

Saru knows, with no little shame, that, threat ganglia or no, he would not have acted any differently today.

Today, Saru had supported Burnham (and her brother, Spock, he has to admit), in the drive to break the rules that exist to protect them all from damage such as this. Saru had known of this plan, this monstrous plan, and aided in its execution.

He had aided and abetted the torture and death of a fellow officer. Of a friend.

The temptation to throw the telescope to the ground is strong, in this moment.

He does not deserve Georgiou’s legacy.

None of them do.

In lieu of throwing the precious relic to the ground, Saru merely traces his hand over the metal surface, rusted and faded from centuries of existence.

At this moment, as in many moments, he wishes sorely that his captain were here.

 

 

**

 

 

 

Doctor Hugh Culber watches from the viewing window above the shuttlebay, as Captain Pike, Admiral Cornwell, and Lieutenant Spock board their shuttle bound for Earth, for San Francisco, Starfleet headquarters, and the court-martials that await each of them.

Culber is reminded of the oath he took in medical school.

_Do no harm…Do no harm…Do no harm…_

He had broken this oath today. He had enabled the plan that put Michael Burnham in restraints, dying in terror from a toxic atmosphere, screaming as she suffocated to death.

He, Doctor Hugh Culber, had done that.

 _Was it easier,_ he muses, _knowing that everyone else was also on board?_

Had it been the fact that every single person on the bridge, on the ground, was working towards the same end, head down and determined, without so much as a whisper of dissent? Was that what made it possible for Doctor Culber to do what he did?

Or had it made the situation simpler, the fact that Burnham had walked to the chair of her own volition, not kicking, nor screaming, with no phaser pointed to her head?

Torture was illegal under Federation law. As was execution.

And that was what this was.

An execution.

Nevermind the fact that Culber had been on-site, ready to revive Burnham at the moment her heart failed.

The fact that she was planning to die at all…

That made it an execution.

Culber watches the shuttle power up in the shuttlebay below, lights turning on as its flight sequences come online. Commander Saru stands next to the shuttle, too far away for Culber to make out his expression. The shuttle whirs, Culber can practically feel the vibrations from where he stands. It will take Spock, Pike, and Cornwell far away from them all, to face judgment for their choices.

_Good._

Culber berates himself for the thought. In truth, it was easy, so _easy_ , to blame those in charge, as well as the one who had stood by the door to ensure it had happened. After all, the rest of them were just following orders, just following orders…

Just… following orders.

But the truth was, they were all to blame. Each and every crewmember involved in the plan _._

All of them had known their oaths, had known the law like they knew their own names, and had decided that the law surely did not apply to one of their own.

Hugh Culber had watched Michael suffering in the throes of a violent, agonizing death. He had watched as her O2 sats plummeted, as her heart beat itself to death to compensate, as her face turned blue and her mouth gaped as she struggled for air…

Culber had watched.

He had watched.

And then Spock had held him and Georgiou at phaser-point, insisting that Michael must die to bring the Angel forth. And Culber had watched as Michael’s head lolled on her shoulders, he heard the remote monitor flatline…and he had done nothing.

For thirty-four long seconds, he had done nothing but stand stock-still…he, Spock, Georgiou, the _Discovery…_ Still and silent, as they waited for a miracle that never came.

And Culber had bolted into the room the moment Georgiou had tackled Spock, barely remembering to activate his helmet as he ran.

Thirty-four long, terrible seconds, before any of them had acted.

Thirty-four seconds in which Michael Burnham had been clinically dead.

And another four, before Culber could place the respirator over Michael’s mouth, the defibrillator pads across her chest.

No amount of oxygen would revive her, Culber had known this even as he placed the mask over Michael’s face. Even the defibrillator was a fool’s hope, as it could only bring the electrical impulses of her heart back online for a brief moment.

It could not keep them online.

It could not keep Michael’s heart beating.

They had left the safety and protection of Michael Burnham to the Red Angel, and the Red Angel had not shown up.

Culber wonders what might have happened if it had. He wonders what might have happened, had they succeeded in catching the Angel, as they had planned.

He wonders if any of them…Pike, Cornwell, Spock … _anyone_ … would have seen any type of consequence for sanctioning Commander Michael Burnham’s torture and death.

Culber thinks of Ripper, and knows the answer to that question.

None of them were Starfleet officers, on this day.

And none of them deserve to be, in the future.

Culber watches the shuttle rise into the air and take off from the shuttlebay. It exits the atmospheric barrier separating the vast expanse of the bay from the vacuum of space, and leaves Culber’s sight as it curves away from the _Discovery_ in its course.

At this moment, Hugh Culber very much wishes he had thrown himself at Lieutenant Spock the moment the man had pulled a phaser on them. He wishes the phaser bolt had taken him in the heart, so Georgiou could’ve had half a chance of subduing the man and reaching Michael in time.

Doctor Culber wishes that he had fought harder for Michael Burnham’s life.

He turns away from the viewing window.

Culber might not feel like much of a Starfleet officer right now, but he is still a doctor. And though he has broken his oath today, he still has a patient in waiting in sickbay.

A very important patient.

A patient who deserves care and comfort. A patient who deserves people who will fight for her life.

Doctor Culber leaves the room. The lights flicker off behind him.

 

 

 

**

 

 

Ash Tyler turns his head, taking in the blue warp trail of the shuttlecraft that had just left _Discovery_ ’s docking bay. He cannot help the chord of bitter satisfaction that lances his chest, even though he knows such an emotion to petty, hypocritical, and utterly undeserved.

Tyler turns away from the window, back towards the morgue table.

Tall, powerful, head bowed, Agent Ash Tyler stands guard over Captain Leland’s body, aboard Captain Leland’s ship. He studies the cold corpse of the man who had been his handler, who had offered him a new life after he fled Qo’Nos.

Captain Leland, stabbed through the eye by his own ocular security system. A mid-brain injury, which had proved fatal.

All aboard the Section 31 vessel are attributing the event to the mysterious time-jumping AI.

It sounds ridiculous, even to Tyler’s ears.

They had offered Michael up to die for such flimsy, barren, _stupid_ reasons---

Hot white fury splits his vision. Tyler raises both fists high, brings them crashing down on the morgue table—

The bang echoes around the empty room. Were he still Voq, that impact would have dented the metal table on each side of Leland’s head, but as he is merely Ash Tyler…

The table remains unmarred.

Michael, Michael, _Michael,_ hadn’t he loved her?

Hadn’t he sworn to protect her, always?

\-- _hands close around Michael’s slim throat, his own hands, though controlled by something utterly foreign—_

Tyler kicks the leg of the table with all of his strength, this time with enough power to rip one of the bolts holding the leg to the floor, clean out of its bearing.

His foot aches. But it feels better than anything else does at the moment.

In two strides, Tyler is at one of the metal cabinets that holds the body trays. His fist flashes out, bashing the metal with a brutal _crack,_ and Tyler lets out an agonized howl, not the pain, but at Michael, _Michael—_

And again, and again, and again, over and over, he lashes out at the cabinet, and the banging echoes around the barren room. Time runs endless, no longer containing meaning nor value, as Tyler’s hand beats at the cold metal of the cabinet until the metal is torn to shreds, until the skin of his fingers and knuckles is raw and bleeding, and still he punches, beating the decimated surface with all of his strength until his middle finger finally snaps—

Tyler drops to his knees, hands shaking, and he screams, _screams_ his agony across the universe itself.

This depraved plan they had all helped carry out, every single one of them…even him…

Voq…Section 31…now this…

Why, _why,_ could he not stop betraying Michael Burnham?

 

 

**

 

 

Agent Philippa Georgiou is falling asleep where she sits in the chair by Michael’s bedside.

She has been here since 2300 hours, when all of Michael’s ridiculous friends had finally, _finally_ left, all with varying levels of red eyes and puffy faces.

Their displays of weakness are disgusting.

Georgiou is certain to never allow her lips to leave their flat state, to never allow her eyes to so much as sting, and to be overt in the cleaning of her knives and phaser in her chair beside Michael’s biobed, to keep the goddamn do-gooders away, should they return.

Somehow, this display of weaponry had not stopped Doctor Pollard from checking up on Michael every twenty minutes, casting Georgiou not so much as sideways glance as she checks the scans and adjusts the medication levels on the machines.

Georgiou cannot help but allow the Doctor some manner of grudging respect for that.

But now it is 0230, and Pollard has finally retired for the night.

“ _On-call_ ,” she had clarified to Georgiou with a pointed eyebrow, before sequestering herself in the call-room annex just off of sickbay.

Georgiou knows that eyebrow.

_No funny business._

She uncertain as to what Pollard had thought she might do. Michael is well-taken care of on this ship, Section 31 had gone so far as to even lend medical equipment to this sickbay, in order to better aid in Michael’s…recovery.

Recovery?

Convalescence?

Stasis?

_Idiot._

She won’t be getting better. Georgiou has seen enough of death in her universe to know when it happens, and when it is inevitable.

Michael’s heart had stopped in a perchlorate atmosphere. Were it a mere phaser wound, a stabbing, that would be one thing, but the systemic damage from literal poisonous air had destroyed her every organ system, lymphatic to limbic. Only her brain seems to show any signs of life, and minimal ones at that.

Michael had suffered an agonizing death, willingly. She had walked towards that chair, head held high, and accepted it.

Georgiou is so unbearably proud of her.

She gazes at the knife in her hands and wishes fervently that she had gutted that half-Vulcan man before he had boarded that shuttle for Earth. She wishes she had tackled him the instant he had pulled the phaser, superior Vulcan reflexes or no. They had out-numbered Spock by a significant margin, they could have done it.

They…

They _could have_ \---

With a deft flick of her hand, Georgiou has the knife by the hilt. In a moment she is on her feet, throwing the knife all of her might. It embeds in the chrono over the sickbay doors, dead-center within the “zero” of 0240.

The chrono flickers, emitting a sickly electric hum. Sparks fly from the LED backing, the numbers struggle for a brief moment before winking out.

The slightly metallic scent of electrical fire spreads across sickbay as Georgiou watches the chrono die.

Georgiou shakes out her hand. That was satisfying.

In the next moment, the air in front of the doors…flickers.

Georgiou blinks. She rubs at her tired eyes. No, she’s not imagining things.

The air is trembling, reality itself shaking at a point approximately a meter and a half above the deck. It sucks reality in towards itself, bending and shaking until a space nearly two-by-two meters is all but trembling.

In a flash, Georgiou’s phaser is in her hand, hot and ready. She points it towards the aberration in reality, but in truth, she knows what is happening.

Hot red light bursts from the flickering air in front of the doors. Powerful, vibrant red, Georgiou cannot look at directly, her retinas will sear and then she won’t be able to aim, she settles for staring towards a point just above the shaking air, the hot red light, the low hum of power emanating from the point and issuing across the deck, vibrating up through Georgiou’s feet—

She blinks instinctively as the aberration releases an unbearable red flare—

And when she opens her eyes, the Angel is there.

Standing in sickbay, body encased in a metallic flight suit, delicate “wings” folding in on themselves before tucking safely into the power-pack on the back of the suit. The so-called “red angel” wears a helmet obscuring the face, but it is clearly a woman from the shape of the suit’s hips and bodice.

There are no alarms going off, no proximity alerts chiming; Georgiou knows this is sickbay, but surely such an energy surge would trigger some type of sensors somewhere—

The angel takes a step forward, but Georgiou levels her phaser.

“Don’t move.”

The angel’s helmet twitches as she looks from the phaser and back up to Georgiou’s face.

In a split second, the arm whips up, Georgiou takes the shot but does not see what happens to the phaser bolt as her vision is swarmed with blinding, _searing_ red light once more.

The angel’s hand emits some type of hot red beam, which takes Michael right in the chest.

“No!”

Georgiou throws herself across Michael’s body, shielding it from whatever nefarious intent the angel might have with its red energy beam—

The moment she hits the energy, her legs spasm beneath her, and her body crumples to the ground. Gasping, shaking, Georgiou is almost certain she has been hit by a bolt of lightning, her limbs jerking, her heart pounding in her ears.

_What the hell was that?_

But as soon as it started, the light is gone, leaving the wide expanse of sickbay dark once more.

Georgiou can only watch from her painful position on the floor, body trembling uncontrollably, as the angel approaches Michael’s bedside.

“Stay…away…from her…”

The words leave her chest in a weak rasp, she can barely control the muscles of her jaw. Fuck, what the hell was in that energy burst?

The angel casts a look down towards Georgiou. A moment later, her faceplate pulls away, the helmet retracting into the neck of the suit, to reveal dark skin, darker eyes, black curly hair…and a face.

Lined, weathered, heavy with unknowable burden… And most certainly _not_ Georgiou’s Michael.

However, she does recognize that face.

“Samara…Burnham.”

Georgiou whispers the name, and all of the pieces of this infernal mystery fall into place.

The woman in the suit stares at her, utterly unimpressed.

“Sam- _air_ -ah,” she corrects finally, her voice rich and mellow like Michael’s had been. “Sam- _air_ -ah Robinson.”

It seemed Michael’s mother had not bothered to take her husband’s name in this universe.

Georgiou nods her acknowledgement with only a slight roll of her eyes.

“Good of you...to fucking show up.”

“And where were you, exactly?”

Doctor Samara Robinson rounds the bed, leaning down towards Georgiou with a hand outstretched. Muscles still twitching, Georgiou cannot put up any sort of a fight, but Michael’s mother only grasps the front of Georgiou’s leathers, pulling her roughly off the floor and all but throwing her into the chair by Michael’s bedside.

“You, on-site, ten meters away? You, who let her die in agony—“

“We had a plan…” The justification sounds weak and stupid to Georgiou’s ears. “We had a plan… We were standing by…ready to revive.”

Doctor Robinson casts a long, blank stare over Michael’s immobile body. She looks back to Georgiou.

“Good job.”

A spike of helpless fury strikes Georgiou behind the eyes, though towards the angel or herself, she uncertain.

“And where were you?” She demands. “You show up when she is in danger—“

Doctor Robinson actually laughs at that. She all but cackles, head thrown back, eyes crinkling, white teeth flashing; Georgiou thinks she could be beautiful, were the sound not so desperately bitter.

“My…my daughter…the _Starfleet officer_?” Doctor Robinson shakes her head patronizingly at Georgiou, her wing-suited body still shaking with mirth. “You think I’d have gotten any rest in twenty years if that were the case? _Shows up whenever she’s in danger…_ ”

She mocks Georgiou’s tone with a shake of her head, striding away to the now-inactive heart-lung machine.

“And y’all are supposed to the best and brightest minds in the galaxy…pathetic.”

Doctor Robinson starts removing the tubes and hoses from Michael’s body…Michael, who, according to the scans, is now breathing under her own power, heart beating spontaneously and rhythmically…

Georgiou’s eyes widen as she takes in the monitor over Michael’s bed.

The Red Angel, Doctor Samara Robinson, had brought Michael Burnham back to life.

“Over twenty years…” Georgiou manages. “…she’s been an orphan…where…in the _hell…_ were you…”

Doctor Robinson throws Georgiou a piercing glare. “Off experiencing hell and horror, if you must know.”

“What—“

“ _Shut up_!”

Doctor Robinson cuts her off with a fierce exclamation.

“You’ve lost any right to that information the moment you killed my daughter. You can go to hell, and this ship with you.”

She bends over the bed, arms tucking beneath Michael’s back and behind her knees. With barely any type of effort, Doctor Robinson lifts her daughter from the biobed, no doubt mechanically aided by the suit.

Something gold and metallic falls from Michael’s right hand, clinking on the metal deck as it hits the ground. Doctor Robinson starts to walk away; Philippa wills her spasming muscles to move, to do something, _anything._

“Wait,” she grates out. “Wait… _please…_ ”

Doctor Robinson stops, her back still turned to Georgiou in her chair.

Trembling, Georgiou folds herself towards the ground, reaching out for the gold badge that had fallen from Michael’s limp hand.

“She’ll…she’ll want this.”

Georgiou holds the insignia out towards Michael's mother.

The woman turns around. Eyes narrowed, she studies the badge in Georgiou’s outstretched hand.

Doctor Robinson walks forward slowly, suspiciously, until she is in front of Georgiou. Were she hale and whole, Georgiou knows she would be throwing herself at the woman. Wing-suit or no, she would fight tooth and nail with every scrap of her strength to keep her from taking Michael—

But as it is, she merely places the badge on Michael’s stomach, where her curled, cradled body will protect it.

“Where are you taking her?”

Georgiou barely manages to form the question. Her hand trembles, muscles spasming, as it returns to her side.

“Doesn’t matter,” Doctor Robinson states as she walks away, Michael’s body in her arms, her captain’s badge on her stomach. “Anywhere’s better than here.”

 

 

**

 

 

Even within the crushing hold of darkness, Michael Burnham becomes aware of the pressure of arms beneath her body, holding her up and away from the ground. She feels the swing of her feet and legs, the helpless drape of her exposed arm hanging towards the ground, caught in the pull of gravity.

She has no strength to pull it back towards her chest.

Awareness crawls slowly over Michael like the unpleasant ooze of an ice-cold gel.

She is immobile. She is being carried. She feels awful.

Michael manages to blink her eyes open, just barely.

The face above her own is set and determined as it looks straight ahead. Though the chin and the hair are covered by a metallic material, that face is so familiar that Michael could weep.

“…M _—Mommy…_ ”

Tears spring to Michael’s weary eyes at the sight of her mother’s face. Over twenty years have passed since she has last seen it, when her mother had been bundled her into a cabinet in their quarters on Doctari Alpha while her father had readied their weapons.

“ _Do not open this door no matter what, Michael, promise me baby, promise!_ ”

“…Mom _…_ ”

Michael whispers again. Somehow, impossibly, her mother is carrying her.

It doesn’t matter where they are going.

It could not possibly matter.

Finally, Samara Robinson looks down towards Michael’s face. The seriousness of her expression cracks and flickers, opening to one of pure love and tenderness.

“I’ve got you, baby girl. I’ve got you.”

Michael’s lips tremble into a weak smile, even as her eyes slip shut once more. Her limbs don’t work, her chest aches, and some distant shadow of fear over her mind leads Michael to believe that something truly awful had happened to her recently. But all of this is okay, because…

Because her mother is here. Her mom has her.

She is finally, finally safe.

In this way, Doctor Samara Robinson and her daughter depart the _USS Discovery_ , leaving only a hot red flash of light in their wake.

 

 

 

 


End file.
